French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed NATO was undergoing "brain death," lamenting a lack of coordination between Europe and the United States and unilateral action in Syria by key member Turkey, in an interview published Thursday.

"What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO," Macron told The Economist magazine.

The president's explosive comments, appearing to question the very future of NATO, threatened to send shock waves through the alliance ahead of a summit in Britain next month.

"You have no coordination whatsoever of strategic decision-making between the United States and its NATO allies. None," said Macron.

"You have an uncoordinated aggressive action by another NATO ally, Turkey, in an area where our interests are at stake," he added, according to an English transcript released by The Economist.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019